Tax Cut Fraud

Memory lapses in Washington seem as ubiquitous as dementia in a nursing home. When Obama tried to make his case for including revenue raising in a bipartisan debt-cutting plan, he advised GOP lawmakers to talk to their constituents to ask them if they were “willing to compromise your kids’ safety so some corporate jet owners can get a tax break?” Obama had supported just such tax breaks as part of his 2009 fiscal stimulus package that would make buying such aircraft cheaper for companies.

Mysteriously, many seem to have amnesia about the risks in trying to tax the rich. Jimmy Carter and his colleagues enacted a stiff tax on the buying of yachts. Most of the rich therefore managed to do with last year’s yacht or they went abroad and bought a yacht where there was no high tax. The only people hurt were middle class Americans who build yachts in the U.S. Obama faces the same problem with corporate jets.

Taxing the rich has become such a sacred mantra with the Left that there is as much chance of their giving up that worn-out war-cry as there is going out to dinner without their pants on. The fact that there are more left-wing millionaires in Congress than there are Republican millionaires is a fact lost to the media and to most Americans.

Even though the richest 5 percent of Americans pays 60 percent of the federal income taxes and the bottom 50 percent of payers send Uncle Sam less than 3 percent of all income taxes, Obama keeps harping on the mythical complaint that the rich should pay “their fair share.”

Our tax code could be less distorted than it is, but it can’t squeeze a lot more money out of the economy. Taking more than people are willing to give entails more force than our government can get away with, and is, in the end, self-defeating.

Tait Trussell is a national award-winning writer, former vice-president of the American Enterprise Institute and former Washington correspondent for The Wall Street Journal.

Rifleman

Yep, that's why you know they're full of it unless they cut spending up front. It's like Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown to kick.

sky

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sky

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Rifleman

Looks like bs to me.

davarino

Everyone is being taxed enough, except for those in the bottom half with no skin in the game. Why cant we just try cutting spending only? Its never been done. Try something different. Come on, try it, you'll like it.

scum

Get ready for the revolution

Rifleman

What revolution?

coyote3

What are they gonna do, burn their food stamps in protest? Bravo Sierra, if we are going to have an income tax let everyone, I mean everyone, pay, "something". I'll even settle for people paying nothing, if they don't get refund more than is withheld, which is often the case now. Better yet, do away with the constitutionally questionable income tax altogether. Replace it with a national sales/consumption tax, on the condition that the rate be set by constitutional amendment.

Rifleman

"rate be set by constitutional amendment." -GREAT idea, I'm adopting that one.

pnndottv

Everyone pays payroll taxes. I guess Glenn Beck forgot to tell you that one. Idiots calling for lower taxes are incapable of logical decision making. We are at record low tax rates. If we are going to have all of the big guns that you nut jobs want, it takes taxes.

scum

So your plan is to tax the poor and middle class. That works wonders…

tanstaafl

Why not? It would be shared sacrifice. And you know that Obama just has to raise taxes. Why not on those who don't pay any in the first place?

Brian

Tax the rich and big business again. What country did they move to last time this happened?

Rifleman

"The rich and big business" are taxed too much already. Quit being greedy for other people's money.

coyote3

Well, the poor can't move, so why "not" tax them?

StephenD

Consumer tax is the only equitable answer. Businesses that go overseas would come back. Hell, foreign businesses would be clamoring to open up shop here! Elimination of the income tax would work miracles. No more IRS as we know it and a hell of a lot more money flowing into the Federal coffers. No more “loop holes” or “working under the table” EVERYONE that buys ANYTHING would pay a tax, period. You want a pair of work boots? Pay the tax. You want a Rolls Royce? Pay the tax. You buy overseas and bring it into this country…pay the tax. Simple really.

guest

agreed. wrote my thesis many years ago with the same argument. too many deadbeats to ever allow, however.

coyote3

I will say, you consumer tax does have some merit. I could care less how equitable or inequitable it is. Now, I am not so sure I support it 100%, but I will say, it is one type of tax that would probably be constitutional, which is more than I can for the current system. Now, the next step is to make sure the tax money, regardless of how it is collected is spent to exercise powers that are actually constitutionally delegated to congress.